The average individual likely utilizes multiple mobile technology applications daily. Some of those applications may be tools to help the user in various ways (e.g., communicating, information gathering, directional navigation, etc.). As applications have become more complicated and advanced with regard to their features, they have gained the ability to process more and more information to further enhance their abilities.
One source of information required for many applications is device location, and by extension the user's location. This allows certain applications to function more efficiently (e.g., if a user is searching for a restaurant, the device application can narrow the recommendations based on the user's location). Although there are a variety of ways to retrieve a user's location information, (e.g., GPS, Glonass, Galileo, multilateration of radio signals between cellular towers, Wi-Fi connections, etc.) some are more robust or cost effective than others. Determining user location based on wireless signals like Wi-Fi is a useful alternative when the user is in a building or otherwise unable to acquire a satellite based location service. However, building a reliable database of the millions of wireless access point locations is extremely complex, and thus only a few large organizations have the capability. This can lead to a high price point for access to the most accurate of these services.